Africa Rising

Directed by Emmy Award® winner Paula Heredia and produced by Equality Now, AFRICA RISING travels through remote villages in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali, Somalia and Tanzania. Weaving together dynamic footage and the poignant stories of girls personally affected by FGM, it shows how African women and men are putting an end to this human rights violation. Convincing circumcisers to lay down their knives, engaging the police to implement the law, and honing leadership skills in girls, these determined activists have been working tirelessly for years to conceptualize their campaign. AFRICA RISING paints an intimate portrait of the broadly-based but little-known anti-FGM movement and shows that courageous, creative and resourceful individuals can change the course of history. (http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c762.shtml)

After the screening Q&A.

African Pride

South Africa's Constitution was the first in the world to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But rights belie the reality for many. Homophobia has found violent expression in assaults, rape and murders. However this violence is being met with visibility by way of township prides and protests. Each person bearing a banner has their own reason to be visible. There are the loud activists and the shy ones, the lovers, the mourners and the survivors. It is through their stories that African Pride explores this determined, relentless and colourful movement. (Written by Laura Fletcher | www.imdb.com/title/tt3811556/)

Das Mädchen Hirut (Difret)

Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, Ethiopia 2014, 99 min., feature film, Colour, ogs Three hours outside of Addis Ababa, a bright 14-year-old girl is on her way home from school when men on horses swoop in and kidnap her. The brave Hirut grabs a rifle and tries to es-cape, but ends up shooting her would-be husband. In her village, the practice of abduction into marriage is common and one of Ethiopia’s oldest traditions.

Meaza Ashenafi, an empowered and tenacious young lawyer, arrives from the city to repre-sent Hirut and argue that she acted in self-defense. Meaza boldly embarks on a collision course between enforcing civil authority and abiding by customary law, risking the ongoing work of her women’s legal-aid practice to save Hirut’s life.

Beneath the layer of polite social customs, an aggressively rooted patriarchy perpetuates inhospitable conditions for women in this engrossing and significant film, based on a real-life story. Ethiopian-born writer/director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari portrays, with panoramic beauty, the complexity of a country’s transformation toward equal rights, featuring the coura-geous generation that dares to own it. – Sundance Film Festival (http://difret.com)

Drei Kriegerinnen (Three Pugnacious Women – Tres mujeres guerreras)

Diana Avella’s is a rapper, her lyrics challenge social injustices. Yamili Ocampo organizes literacy and educational trainings for children and youngsters. Teresa Castrillon launched an organization that supports victims of violence and relatives of missing persons in order to raise awareness on their situation and to stand up for their rights. In Colombia these three women fight against machismo and violence and engage for social peace and justice in a very provoking, evocative and courageous manner.

‘From Puerto Berrio, from the communities of Medellín, from the hills and quarters of Bogota three pugnacious women change the world with arts, faith and resistance.’

Something Necessary

FOKUS fighters

Judy Kibinge, Kenya/ Germany 2013 feature film, 85 min, color, ogs

Something Necessary is an intimate moment in the lives of Anne and Joseph. A woman struggling to rebuild her life after the civil unrest that swept Kenya after the 2007 elections claiming the life of her husband, the health of her son and leaving her home on an isolated farm in the Kenyan countryside in ruins, she now has nothing but her resolve to rebuild her life left. A young man, troubled gang member who participated in the countrywide violence is drawn to Anne and her farm seemingly in search of redemption. Both, Joseph and Anne need something that only the other can give to allow them to shed the painful memories of their past and move on. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2400272/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl)

The Supreme Price

FOKUS fighters

Joanna Lipper, USA/ Nigeria 2013 documentary, 75 min, color, ev

The Supreme Price is a feature length documentary film that traces the evolution of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Nigeria and efforts to increase the participation of women in lead-ership roles. Following the annulment of her father's victory in Nigeria's Presidential Election and her mother's assassination by agents of the military dictatorship, Hafsat Abiola faces the challenge of transforming a corrupt culture of governance into a democracy capable of serv-ing Nigeria's most marginalized population: women. (http://www.joannalipper.com/filmmaker/supreme-price)

Vessel

FOKUS fighters

Diana Whitten, USA 2014 documentary, 90 min, color, ev

Vessel begins with a young doctor who lived by the sea, and an unlikely idea. Rebecca Gomperts, horrified by the realities created by anti-abortion law around the world, felt com-pelled to challenge this. Her method: to provide abortions on a ship in offshore waters. Her project, Women on Waves, begins as flawed spectacle, a media frenzy, faced with govern-mental, religious, and military blockades. But with each setback comes a more refined mis-sion, until Rebecca has the revelation that she can use new technologies to bypass law – and train women to give themselves safe abortions using WHO-sanctioned protocols with pills. We witness the creation of an underground network of emboldened, informed activists, working at the cutting edge of global reproductive rights, who trust women to handle abortion themselves. Vessel is Rebecca’s story: one of a woman who heard and answered a calling, and transformed a wildly improbable idea into a global movement. (http://vesselthefilm.com/)